Intersection (A Cross Posted Story)
by HAZZARD OVERFLOW
Summary: A clash between the classes of Cannon 1-A and the ones from Civil war. Please read Rouge Druid's story before this. Rated M for I don't know.
1. First Contact

A device sits in a corner, beeping periodically. The beeps start to gain in frequency as warning labels start to buzz, gauges going out of control. Eventually, energy starts to leak out of the machine, before EXPLODING! A figure came out. as a being of pure fluctuating energy.

Hey there everybody! I'm sure you're wondering about my new name. Well, it all starts with discord, a chat site for gamers. Long story short, I joined a cult and met a co-writer. Give it up for Crystalquill! (Shows no one) ... oh right, i'm just doing this now ... i'll introduce you latter.

Anyway, our fic is based off another one called Hero Class Civil War. She had the original idea with 2 chapters. After that, I joined the server and offered her ideas. She liked, and made me a co-writer.

So this will be cross posted on her Ao3 account. Because it won't give it to me. So enjoy 6 new chapters!

* * *

When Iida Tenya had heard UA's intruder alarm for the second time in his life, he expected a villain assault, or the press again, or a misfire or a diversion for something else, but he hadn't expected _this_.

The group of people huddled around in UA's green plains looked exactly like the people around him. He could see All Might's distinctive form standing out among the crowd, Present Mic's voluminous hairstyle peeking out from the back, and, after a few seconds, he saw himself in a fighting stance, giving orders with chopping motions.

As he was instructed to go to his homeroom, he saw principal Nedzu walk up to the confused mass of people and begin a conversation.

'Things never stop happening around here, don't they?', he thought as he ushered his classmates with Yaoyorozu's help. '"Plus Ultra" indeed'.

* * *

Aizawa Shota stood in the normally bright Principal's Office, now sunk in shadows. The metal shutters had fallen in response to the alarm and nobody had risen them after, mostly since the threat hadn't passed.

The two Nedzu's (and if that wasn't ominous, Shota didn't know what was.) smiled at each other from opposites sides of the desk. Shota's own counterpart slumped in a chair, his eye-bags a few shades darker than his own.

"This is a very peculiar circumstance!" began Nedzu, the one from his own UA, cheerfully.

"Indeed," the other one responded, swirling his cup of tea. "It was certainly strange to find a Timeline Quirk, much less for it to be capable of transporting so many people at once. Then again, this year has the propensity for getting into very _interesting_ situations," he said, then took a sip from his tea.

Shota –not him the other one– snorted inelegantly and a fond smile played on his lips. Shota was inordinately attached to his class, that he knew annoyingly well, but he didn't show it. He had absolutely no idea why the hell his double did, and the amount of unanswered questions he had edged him closer to a violent headache.

"He's telling the truth," said Detective Naomasa through the telephone call. It was very convenient his Quirk worked through speakers.

"Well, if that's the case, we need to find out what's different!" Nedzu, his Nedzu– That was going to be annoying. Enough with that. Given names for those of his timeline, last names for the people from the other timeline, at least until a better method is found.

Both Nedzu and Nezu climb up the table and start talking inhumanly fast-paced, so fast it almost sounds like chitters or squeaks. That is something Shota never wants to hear ever again.

He moves to unfold his emergency sleeping bag and catches the stare of his counterpart. He pauses, both staring into each other's eyes, not unlike the staring matches his cats have with each other.

"YOOOOO SHOTA!" screams Hizashi, making both of their heads swivel to him. He doesn't even blink at the double-stare and continues forward to sling an arm around Shota's shoulders. "There's two of you now!"

"I noticed," he grumbles back, but he curls himself a little toward Hizashi's warmth. He can feel himself relax little by little, and Yamada goes to curl up with Aizawa too. 'At least that hasn't changed between timelines' is his last thought before he starts dozing.

…

"May I have your attention!" calls Nezu after an unfairly short time, the murmur of conversation that hadn't been there before stopping abruptly. Shota doesn't move or open his eyes, but his training refuses to let him go back to sleep. The Principal seems to know this because he continues regardless of his state.

"We have found the divergence!" he says before pulling up a few records up on screen. "Our curriculum included an activity called "Hero Class Civil War" in the months between the internships and final exams, but it was scrapped after a few iterations to leave more time for the students to prepare for the exams. I believe it was around your time, All Might?"

"Yes it was!" he announces, obviously trying to imitate how his voice boomed before losing his Quirk. He more or less manages it, but not without coughing noisily and spitting blood. "I remember Todo– Endeavor was very disappointed he could not fight in his third year!"

Shota expects some inane commentary over this, and he gets it from the people in his timeline, but those from the other timeline remain suspiciously silent.

"Oh," says Vlad King. Kan doesn't elaborate what he meant by that. No one from the other timeline says anything back.

Shota prizes his instincts, he has spent most of his life listening to them, like every logical Pro Hero should. Right now, they are pointing out Yagi's slight pallor, and Nedzu's a-little-too-wide smile.

He sees Aizawa's face flash through a thousand different emotions. Pride, doubt, disappointment, nervousness…

Just what the hell happened?


	2. Calm Before The Storm

Izuku will admit this is not where he thought he would spend today, but then there were worse places he could be in.

The room was spacious and well-lit, with a few tables here and there. He also knew it was probably reinforced to hell and back and guarded by other Pro Heroes on the other side. Still, they had given them all access to cookies and beverages, so it wasn't that bad.

"It's so cool! They're us, we're them and who knows what's different!" Uraraka enthuses, bouncing in her seat. "Anything could happen!" She pumps up her hand, accidentally aiming it towards Todoroki, who's sitting beside her. He makes an attempt at dodging and only partly succeeds. Uraraka starts apologizing profusely.

From his right, Momo giggles, covering her mouth with her hand. Izuku knows that's the "proper" way to laugh, but he can't help but wish she wouldn't hide her face. Her smile is one of the most beautiful things he's ever seen and it doesn't seem fair to the world to keep it hidden.

"True," says Momo. "Alternate timelines could make anything possible. However, we can start sorting through a few alternatives."

"What do you mean?" says Todoroki in a perfect deadpan, a slight crease in his eyebrows the only mark of his confusion.

"Well, we know UA exists in this timeline and it looks the same as far as we know. Principal Nedzu is still the Principal, Aizawa-sensei is still tired and so on. It's safe to assume we can discard a few possibilities from that."

"Correct! We also know All Might-sensei exists!" exclaims Iida, waving a cookie around.

Izuku is about to point out that the evacuation looked a lot more organized than before, until Hitoshi stirs and grumbles.

"Good morning!" cheers Izuku. The purple-haired boy sits straighter and rubs his eyes.

"What time is it?" yawns out Hitoshi, blindly groping for a cookie. Izuku puts one in his hand and he nods. He takes a bite and gets cookie crumbs all over his face. Izuku itches to clean them up.

"3:30 pm!" calls out Iida, and Hitoshi winces, glaring at the noise. Iida apologizes at the exact same volume.

Before an argument can break out, the door opens and the teachers that had gone away to talk as ambassadors come in. None of them look particularly worried, so Izuku guesses things had gone over well.

"Dear students!" begins Nedzu from where he's standing on Aizawa-sensei's shoulder. "I bring good news! The first is the fact that this intersection of realities is not permanent! We got in contact with the person with the Timeline Quirk. They informed us of how after two weeks, give or take, all of us will go back to the place where we were. They apologize profusely on behalf of their alternate self for causing so much trouble. since those two weeks will also have gone by in our timeline by the time we get back there."

Relieved cheers rise up from the crowd and Izuku is right there with them. Iida doesn't look so happy though. He raises his hand and stands up.

"Nedzu-san, are you saying we will lose two weeks of education? It is unbecoming and highly irresponsible for an institution as prestigious as UA to do such a thing!" Iida exclaims, posture ram-rod straight.

"Thank you for your concern, Iida-san!" responds Nedzu. Iida bows in response. "We talked with the UA staff and administration and we have managed to create a schedule for these two weeks! The morning classes will be held in a few spare classrooms, just like usual! Lunch will be set up outside on the grass field behind the school. Heroic Studies, however, will be taken in concert with your counterparts!"

'That's such a good idea!' thinks Izuku. 'Being able to train with your counterpart offers you an outsider view of your skills and Quirks! It would be ten times easier to catch your own mistakes and know how to fix them. And! If you know something your counterpart doesn't or vice versa, they could teach that. And since they're you they'd be an incredibly efficient teacher. Nobody knows you like yourself after all and–'

"Thank you for the compliments, Midoriya-kun!"

Izuku squeaks and turns toward the Principal, who had been listening to his unintentional muttering all along. Izuku's face heats up with embarrassment and starts rubbing the back of his neck. The whole table laughs, even Todoroki, though his laugh is more like a few soft puffs of air while quirking up his lips.

"Yo, what about me!"

Izuku jumps at the suddenness of the shout. He then gets used by Mei as an armrest. He then sees Aizawa-sensei staring at him, his grimace a little tighter than usual. He saw him jump…. He's getting nothing but situational awareness exercises from now on, isn't he?

"Don't worry, Hatsume-san! You have been given access to the Support Labs to use at your leisure. Though if you want to work on things with your counterpart you will need to be under supervision of _both_ Power Loaders."

"Whoohooo! Thank you so much Nedzu!"

Iida cringes at the lack of honorific but he doesn't say anything. If he drew attention to himself now, she would use him as a guinea pig the next time he's close to her lab. Izuku doesn't comment on it for his sake.

"It was the right choice to do one last revision before you guys left!" says Mei, gently tugging a strand of his, Momo's and Hitoshi's hair, which is Mei-speak for "I love you". ´That way I can say two things at once and not break my train of thought! Everybody wins!' she had said the first time she did that. (Though they had to remind her to clean her hands before doing it almost every single time.)

"How so?" asked Momo, moving over so she could make more space for her. It made the bench they were sitting on a bit cramped, but none of them minded.

"I wouldn't have been with you guys, first, and second–" she got a dreamy expression on her face, dramatically draping herself over Momo. "–Imagine how many babies I'll be able to create with my other self!"

She continued fantasizing, unaware of the multiple expressions of horror on the table. Izuku couldn't wait to see what she came up with!

"One last thing!" called Nedzu. Izuku noticed how the teachers looked confused, so this was probably going to be news to them as well.

"The difference between this timeline an ours is the fact that the Class Civil War got canceled long ago!"

...Izuku could more or less picture who he'd be if he hadn't become the Kingpin during his first year. He wouldn't have been as confident of himself or of his plans. He wouldn't have had any reason to interact with 1-B and make friends with them. He would definitely not be dating the three people around him. He hadn't stopped to think how much that one exercise changed his life, and he's very glad it happened.

"In light of this, my counterpart agreed to the possibility of conducting one such event! But! We are here, in this timeline, with these people. What could be more Plus Ultra than going up against yourself?"

"No way," said Uraraka, staring dumbfounded at the Principal. Her mouth was halfway open, hanging loose. Nobody Izuku could see, not even Izuku himself, was faring much better.

"UA vs UA! A battle for the ages!" Nedzu announced, delighting himself on the reactions he was creating. "Of course, no specifics have been agreed upon yet." he said apologetically.

From the corner of his eye he saw Vlad King-sensei open and close his mouth multiple times, looking remarkably like a very toothy fish, before giving up and distressingly running a hand through his hair.

"Though there is one thing we agreed upon!" Every shred of attention was aimed towards Nedzu, everyone strung even tighter at the news.

"It is only fair for the more Civil War-experienced UA to play the more difficult role of the villains, after all!"

Izuku could feel dozens of eyes on him, looking, waiting for any kind of reaction.

So, he gave the only one that made sense.

 _He smiled._


	3. Divided

Nedzu sipped tea in his office, checking and rechecking the schedule changes and locations to accommodate the UA counterparts in his school.

He glanced at the clock and calculated that his other self would be shortly wrapping up giving the news to his students, which meant less time until he would return to iron out the rest of the details.

Nedzu had been incredibly delighted to finally be able to communicate and give free reign to his intellect with another person who could keep up with him. He hadn't felt so challenged in ages!

Speaking of challenge, the concept of the Civil War presented a beautiful test for the students. It would undoubtedly produce very interesting results!

That reminded him of one of the files his counterpart had sent him, with instructions to view it once alone. It had been named "HCCW-Promotion XX-Year 1", if his memory didn't fail him (which almost never did). He supposed he could watch it now, since he had a bit of free time.

The video's first image was of a group of students, seemingly led by Bakugo, holding a meeting.

He pressed play.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

If you asked Shinso Hitoshi about what the Principal had said as a closing statement, he wouldn't have been able to tell you.

He was too busy watching Izuku shift from Deku to Kingpin.

It was subtle, Hitoshi had to admit. If you didn't know Izuku well, missing it was easy.

But Hitoshi _knew_ him.

He knew how to spot the change in his posture, from relaxed to confident. Knew how to look for the sudden stillness of his nervous habits. Knew how to see the glint of steel in his eyes.

Izuku whips out his phone, shooting off a single message to the villain group chat: an image of the villain insignia.

All over, the villains stand up from their seats, heading to their table in unison.

Hitoshi's been knocked off-centre about this whole... _thing._ He hadn't been expecting to be playing the role of Con Man until the next Civil War. Hell, not even then! The teams would be reshuffled and he could have been in the heroes' side. He's nowhere near prepared for this.

But, Izuku is relying on him to pull him back from the edge, to keep him from going past the point of no return. Hitoshi can't let him down, and he knows Izuku will do his best to make the most out of the situation with everyone in mind.

So, he breathes in to calm his nerves, and switches sides to sit at Izuku's right. He turns to face the approaching crowd.

Mezo– no, Assault takes an empty table with him on the way, and the rest of the villains soon follow his example. Hitoshi moves to direct them, and in a matter of seconds they have a big enough table to seat everybody. Hacker and Assault sit at Izuku's left, Forgery and himself to his right. Izuku sits at the head of the table, his interlocked hands leaving only his eyes in view. The manic glint in them turns his stare from intense to ominous.

"Should– should we go away?" asks Uraraka. One of her hands is messing with the hem of her skirt and she keeps shifting her weight restlessly.

"No, don't!" says Forgery, smiling as she creates pens and a few sheets of paper and hands them over to Izuku. "All of you are no longer enemies of ours. You are allies and you will be treated as such."

Uraraka hesitates and glances over at Iida. He's staring at the whole group with an expression that's a mixture between pained and horrified, which ends up looking like he really needs to go to the bathroom.

Todoroki simply blinks and moves to seat himself, before Izuku stops him.

"Actually, could you guys call the other heroes and bring them here?" Izuku asks, looking at the three of them with a smile like honey.

They crumble in seconds.

Hitoshi doesn't envy them, they're going to have to convince Bakugo to come. At least they won't have to convince the little purple fucker, since he was expelled. That was still a novelty worthy of being celebrated.

"So what's the plan?" asks Hitoshi and interlaces their hands together.

Izuku squeezes his hand, harder than he would have expected. 'He's nervous,' Hitoshi realizes. 'Just as nervous as I am. Possibly even more.'

"I'm thinking on it," promises Izuku, and leans into Hitoshi for a second. Then, he straightens up and completely slides the metaphorical mask of the Kingpin on.

Both Heroics Classes look expectantly at him, even Bakugo, though he's sitting a few ways over with most of the Bakusquad. They way the Bakusquad's chairs are set creates a weird row from where Bakugo is, starting with Kirishima and ending in Drug-runner, sitting beside Lift.

"What are we going to start with? Team composition?" asks Hold Up and Graffiti sitting beside him nods.

"No, explaining _them_ how _our_ team works is the first thing we should do," says Larceny, smiling rudely at the heroes, most of them at the other side of the table.

"Larceny, allies remember?" says Forgery gently. Larceny has the decency to smile sheepishly, but he doesn't apologize. "And even then, skill-evaluation should always be the first step when creating a team," she adds. She gets a few nods for her comment.

"Thank you everybody for your input," says Kingpin, rising from his chair. "But we're forgetting something very important," he continues gravely, walking behind his chair and using the back of it as an armrest.

"Do all of you want to participate in the War?" he asks.

"Uhh, what do you mean?" asks Kaminari.

"The last Civil War was part of the curriculum. We had no option but to participate or fail. This War? Nedzu-san said his counterpart had agreed with the possibility of conducting the exercise. It's not fixed, it's not obligatory," explains Kingpin, slowly walking around the table.

"It's okay if you guys don't want to participate. I'm sure that if we talked with Nedzu-san we could even cancel the whole thing. We could figure something out for those who don't want to fight. I don't want to force any of you to do something you don't want to do if I can help it," he says, eyes shining with honesty.

"But know that if you agree, it doesn't matter if I'm your leader or not, I'll still expect you to give it your all. We're here to become the best heroes we can be, and that means knowing how our enemies behave. It's all or nothing. 'Plus Ultra', remember?"

He stops at the other side of the table– the side that has the most heroes.

"So? What will it be?"

Larceny holds out a hand in a fist, pointing it towards the middle of the table.

"As if there was any question," he says.

Animal wordlessly does the same, smiling all the while.

The villains one by one hold out their hands, forming a half-circle with a few spaces interspersed. There is no hesitation in any of them, Hitoshi notices. Even Extortion, who got literally shot in the back, holds out her hand fearlessly.

Kaminari is the first hero to hold out his hand.

"What?" he says. "All of you saw how absolutely insane the villains were. They wiped the floor with us! And all of them discovered at least one new thing about their Quirks! You can't tell me that isn't cool," concludes Kaminari, looking pleased with himself.

Todoroki follows, but he gives no explanation as to why. Hitoshi isn't sure why he was so adamant to be a hero las time and now wants to be a villain so easily. He doesn't want to ask, but curiosity is going to drive him crazy. Meh. He'll just ask Izuku to do it later.

Tsuburaba holds out his hand next and moves to sit beside Hold Up and Graffiti. Kamakiri holds out his hand too, nodding solemnly at the Kingpin. Uraraka goes next, enthusiastically holding out her hand, her previous nervousness forgotten. Asui goes next, then Shishida, Testsutetsu, Manga, Ojiro…

One by one, hand by hand, the circle starts to close.

Now there's only two hands missing. Kingpin's and Bakugo's.

Everybody looks at them. Some, like Sero, with apprehension. Others, like Ochako, with worry. Extortion's staring in open disgust, Kirishima with hope. And some, like Mei, with curiosity on how sweaty Kingpin will get if they fight.

"I'm fighting," grinds out Bakugo. There's a flash of surprise among the people at the table. He makes no move to hold out his hand. "But I won't take your orders, _Deku,"_ he says, staring straight into Kingpin's eyes with the kind of hate he'd never seen from anyone before.

Bakugo stands up and takes his chair with him. Kirishima makes a move to go after him, apologizing in his behalf.

The circle is never completed.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"Did you guys hear?!" Ashido shouted at the classroom.

"Of course we did Pinky, we have fucking ears! Now shut the fuck up!" shouts Bakugo even louder.

Ashido completely ignores Bakugo, which balls to her, man.

Denki still has no idea of what she's talking about.

"No, dude. What is it?" he says while packing his things. Well, more like just throwing all his school supplies together into his bag, which always ends up making a giant mess.

"We're going to fight our other-us!"

Bakugo perks up at the mention of "fight", and Sero looks up from his phone, setting it aside. Denki takes a chair and turns in around to sit on it.

"Yeah! I can't wait to meet my other self! Our fight's gonna be so manly!" exclaims Kirishima and seats himself on the desk.

"Don't you already have another self?" asks Sero, who's grin is as wide as it can get.

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Did you forget about Tetsutetsu?" teases Kaminari.

"Oh, come on! We're not that alike! Stop laughing Ashido! Guyyyys"

Denki can't help it. Kirishima's done-with-everything expression is too funny, so he keeps on laughing until Bakugo gets fed up and unleashes an explosion on all of their faces.

"Shut up losers!"

"Oh come on Bakugo!," says Kirishima, grinning from ear to ear. "Aren't you excited about this?"

"Hell yes I am! I'm going to crush my other me!"

"So you're saying you're gonna lose," says Ashido and expertly dodges one of Bakugo's swipes.

"Don't twist my fucking words you soggy–"

Ding!

"Guys look!" says Sero, pulling out his phone from his pocket.

Denki practically jumps out of his chair, almost faceplants (not cool) but still gets to Sero's side with only a minimum of snickers from his friends.

"Students of UA, as of today, yada yada yada– here it is. The following attachment contains information on the UA War exercise ," reads Sero, taps a few times, skims over the things they already know, and continues: "'Tomorrow during the joint Heroics Class, a vote will be held among the two Heroics classes, of both UA's, in order to choose each of their team leaders–'"

"Not another vote!" interrupts Denki, throwing his hands around to emphasize his point.

"What, still salty only you voted for yourself?" says Ashido, hand on her hips.

"You only got your own vote too!" quips back Denki.

"I'm going to keep reading! Wait, I lost it, oh nevermind– 'choose their team leaders'... 'The exercise will be three days long', just like the last one, apparently... 'Seven days of preparation, counting the weekend', wait we lose our weekend for this?"

"No one fucking cares! Keep reading!"

"Ok, geez. 'The students will have a lighter class load', sweet! We can plan and share ideas for the War before the days of preparation, we just can't actually put them into practice until then... 'No permanent damage on students, no killing', the usual stuff... 'Rulebooks will be given the first day of preparation and need to be read completely'... 'No spying on the days of preparation, no fighting with the people on the other team before the exercise begins'… 'Only members of the Hero Classes will be able to participate, though exceptions will be allowed with consent from at least two UA teachers and their counterparts', wow, wonder why that's a rule. 'Since the exercise is not part of the normal curriculum, it can't be graded. But, it will give extra credit if the student's performance merits it. Details on said merits will be present on the rulebook.'"

"Hell yes! I'm almost failing math! This thing is a godsend!" cheers Denki and starts a victory dance. Ashido joins him, shouting her own happiness and doing her dance moves as wildly as she can. Kirishima starts dancing too just because, doing the sprinkler because why not?

"All of you look like idiots dancing without music," says Bakugo, leaning back on a chair and putting his feet on the desk, smirking as if he was looking at a couple of dogs chase their tails. Rude!

A second after music starts blasting from Sero's phone, and he stands up to dance too, doing that thing where you shuffle-run in place. Kirishima attempts to do a twirl and knocks a chair over, which for some reason sends all of them into a fit of laughter. Ashido tries to dip Sero, but their difference in height makes things difficult. Kirishima tries to get Bakugo to dance with him, Bakugo tells him to fuck off. Still, Denki saw Bakugo tapping his foot in time with the beat less than a second ago, so he just wishes that Explody would stop being such a tsundere and join them for once.

Denki decides to do a fantastic air guitar solo, complete with throwing himself on the ground while continuing to rock his imaginary guitar. He gets whoops from everybody and even a wolf-whistle from Ashido.

The door of opens and all of them freeze.

Aizawa stares at their impromtu dance party in the classroom, which, if the clock on the wall doesn't betray Denki, is at least twenty minutes later than they were supposed to stay.

A second Aizawa steps into the doorway, this one wearing the red piece of cloth around his bicep that their doubles use to show they're not from this timeline.

"Out," says their Aizawa, and all of them scramble to get their things and go out the door.

Once they're out of the zone of danger, they burst into giggles. Except Bakugo, who grouches at them for getting him into trouble. 'Whatever, dude' thinks Denki and looks back at the classroom curiously.

He catches the tail-end of red-band-Aizawa's expression, and Denki does a double-take.

Was it him, or did Aizawa look worried for them?


	4. Mirror

The air is electric in Modern Literature Class.

That is Shoto's thinking in said class, trying to concentrate amidst the excitement. The spare classroom they're in is, at first glance, orderly and calm. But everytime the atmosphere wins over Shoto's self-control, he can see little notes being passed from person to person. He doesn't know what they say, but he guesses one of them will get to him soon enough.

He tries to concentrate on the reading they're supposed to be doing.

He fails.

Instead, he thinks of the upcoming Heroics Class and Shoto can't help but be nervous.

They're not in their home turf, as much as this UA looks like their own. They don't belong there at all, and that puts them at a disadvantage.

And, under Midoriya's orders, they're supposed to each watch their double as closely as they can without being suspicious. Those orders are easy for him, since he's normally watching _everything_ , even more so after he started his lessons with the Principal.

He's not enthused about watching another version of himself for mistakes and weaknesses. He has enough with the ones he sees everyday when he looks in the mirror. He's tired of suppressing his father's voice in his head, the one that keeps spitting insults every time he doesn't meet his expectations.

He shakes his head. That train of thought was going to get him nowhere, and the reading's a lost cause at this point. He stealthily takes out a sheet of paper and starts writing down possible villain names and sketching a tentative villain costume, mindful of Cementoss' eyes.

It's a shame that their Cementoss from their UA was not pulled with them, but Shoto supposes losing five teachers and the Principal was going to be a hard enough trial on their UA. He hopes it's still standing by the time they get back.

His mind drifts to the discussion with Midoriya after they agreed with participating in the U.A. Civil War. It was… enlightening to say the least.

Midoriya had talked about the basics of creating a distinct persona of yourself, how to take your own habits and mannerisms and twist them, make them seem intimidating. It had started to click as to how Midoriya had managed to go from a baby deer, scurrying away with each sound, to a viper, unseen and unheard until it had sunk its fangs on you.

He thought before, that knowing how Midoriya had done it would take away the air of mystery and danger around it. He was right, in part. The mystery was almost gone, true, but now he saw just how much effort had been put into crafting that façade. How Midoriya had taken every detail of himself, even his mumbling, and turned it into a weapon.

And now Shoto had to do the same for himself.

He supposed he had a headstart on being intimidating, his father had taught him that early into their training.

He lost himself in the new words, and names and lines he drew in the paper, each of them defining the blurry image in his head.

'Remember, all of you are villains,' Midoriya had said, leaning over Shoto's shoulder to see the notes Iida was taking. 'Heroes normally incorporate their Quirk into their name and costume in order to create a marketable image. Villains don't need that, and in most cases don't want that. You can choose whatever you want, even the most obscure or nonsensical of names and designs, as long as it's practical. I trust all of you will make good decisions if you keep that in mind!' he had finished cheerfully, before going to another group.

'Anything I want…' thinks Shoto, penning down a name.

Someone leaves a piece of paper on his desk, and Shoto was so absorbed in his task that he didn't know who had done it. He takes the piece of paper anyway and reads it carefully.

The request detailed in the paper is something he hadn't expected, in all honesty, but he could see the tactical value of it, the intent behind the action. He signed his name on it, and discreetly passed it to the next person who hadn't signed, in this case being Aoyama.

He doesn't get back to his design, since he can spot two more papers coming his way.

The second paper seems unnecessary at first, remarking on how they need to make the past Civil War seem nothing more than a fun exercise they did once and not the unmitigated carnage that had truly been. Still, the suggestions the paper had on how to do that were pretty good and well-thought out, so Shoto still read it until the end, signed it and passed it along.

The third paper–

What.

What the hell?

Who's idea was this?

Why does it have so many signatures?

Just what the hell is going on?

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Mezo's walking out onto the training ground Alpha in full hero costume, when he sees his double.

The other him is softly talking with a guy with purple hair he didn't remember seeing before, both of them sporting the red bands of the other UA.

Soon, the chatter dies out as all of them notice their other selves. For a second Mezo is struck with the thought of looking at a living mirror. Before he's conscious of it, he has shifted some of his appendages into eyes in order to pick out the tiny differences between the two groups.

Other-Aoyama's costume is markedly sleeker, and his glasses were a soft blue and silver, which admittedly clashed less with the rest of his costume. He spotted how other-Kouda still shifted nervously, but his posture was decidedly less meek and curved. He had to stare for a bit, but he spotted how other-Midoriya's scars were lighter than his counterpart in a few places. He also, strangely, couldn't spot Mineta anywhere. Was he sick or did he get left behind on the other timeline? Mezo made a mental note to ask later. Finally, he noticed how his own double had a nick he didn't remember having on his jaw, and that he was also using his appendages to look at everybody in the class.

The mirror metaphor struck Mezo even harder than before.

He's saved from a minor existential crisis by the 'I am here!' of both All Mights, stepping out into the field. They both wore clothes that finally fit them, and carried notepads. A second later, only one Aizawa stepped into the field, the one wearing the red band, since he didn't have another class to teach.

That Aizawa had already taken out his sleeping bag and was getting ready to get in.

"Listen up, because I'm only going to say this once," drawled the red-band Aizawa. "The students from my UA, the one from the other timeline, are going to be referring to themselves by their villain aliases. Whoever does the illogical thing and calls them by their normal names would not only create confusion, but would also get an extra essay on practicality in the field due in two days. Understood?"

"Hai!" chorused forty voices. Aizawa gets fully into his sleeping bag, zips it up and dozes off.

"Alright! Let's begin!" say in unison both All Mights, which follows the world's most awkward exchange of "you first" "no, you first" "I truly insist, you first".

Eventually, the red-band All Might decides to go first.

"Villain team! Please, share your names with the rest of the class!"

Mezo is seriously hoping the essay thing is a logical ruse, because learning twenty names with just one mention of them is something he's not sure about being able to pull off.

A few names stick to his memory pretty quickly though. Like Sato being called "Overdose", or Todoroki being called "Singularity", or his own counterpart being called "Assault". One sticks out from the rest though:

"My name is Kingpin!" says Midoriya, a big smile on his face. "I know that it's supposed to be the name of the leader of the villains. I didn't have a reason to create another name, so if the votes say otherwise, I'll change it!"

"You were the leader of the villains?" asks Hagakure, her sleeve raising up to show that she's holding up a hand.

"Yeah! I was really surprised when I got chosen!" answers Kingpin with a grin, then moves to the side to make way for… Forgery, apparently.

"Now that that's done!" calls out their All Might. "We'll do a light warm up, and then everybody will pair up to fight their double!"

Cheers rise from everyone around, though Mezo doesn't join them. Instead, he clears his mind and breathes deeply, beginning his preparations for the fight.

"Con Man! It's Con Man, right?" asks their All Might, going towards the shock of purple hair. "As you can see, your double is not here! His schedule conflicted with ours, so instead you will pair up against Mineta-shonen! Though don't worry, Con Man-shonen! He'll be joining us tomorrow!"

Con Man nods and says nothing, though his smile is very telling on what he's planning to do with that information.

"What are you waiting for, children!" calls red-band All Might, this time. "Go warm up!"

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Shota has long ago perfected the art of looking as if he's asleep when he's not. It's come in handy in multiple missions, and for catching students doing things they shouldn't just because he's not there to watch over them. Only a few beings see through this façade: Hizashi, Nedzu, and Mr Fluffles.

He uses the opportunity to assess each of his student's performance. He can tell that Feedback and his double Kaminari are trying to shirk part of their warm up, going by the rhythm of their footsteps. Poison Dart, or Dart for short, is swimming as a way of warming up. She's having fun racing with her counterpart, splashing far too loud, 'kero's ringing out from time to time. Someone started a push-up contest, and, going by the voices, the competitors are three counterpart pairs: Kirishima and Tank, Uraraka and Dead Drop, and Bakugou and Powerhouse.

Iida is attempting to stop the competition, but the competitor's rebuttals leave him nothing to contradict or scold. His counterpart, Crusade, has learned to recognize a lost cause when he sees one, apparently. Instead of outright stopping them, he's trying to make them take the competition a bit more lightly. It seems to be working, to his credit.

Both All Mights call everyone to stop and divide themselves into two groups of ten counterpart pairs each. The two Iidas take charge and divide the class quickly and efficiently, looking remarkably like orchestra conductors. The two All Mights give one group the order to spar, while the remaining twenty people act as spectators and take notes.

Shota risks opening his eye a crack to watch the students as they get into ready positions. The pair nearest to him is the odd one out; the Con Man - Mineta pair. Let this be a test for Con Man, Shota's had enough with him feeling like he didn't truly earn his place in the hero course.

An air horn rips through the training ground and movement flares out erratically.

Mineta tries to launch one of his sticky balls right at Con Man's mouth, which would have worked if Shota hadn't made a point to target his mouth time and time again during training. Con Man dodges out of the way, putting distance between him and his target.

"This is so lame! I thought I would get to fight myself, not the General Studies kid that got dragged here with everyone else!" says Mineta, chucking balls at the ground, effectively turning it into a minefield for everyone but himself.

Con Man moves to respond, but Mineta immediately starts attacking mercilessly, taking advantage of his more developed stamina and fighting style. Con Man tries to counter as best he can, but he doesn't have the experience his opponent has, quickly losing ground and inching towards the boundary of their arena.

Mineta makes a sticky ball whip, sweeping it towards Con Man's feet, and throwing another one of his balls directly at him when he's in the air. He can't dodge, so he turns his head and lets the projectile stick onto his face. Con Man reaches into his pocket and jumps forward, a collapsible bo staff springing to its full length. It takes Mineta by surprise for a second, which allows Con Man to get one solid hit to Mineta's face.

Shota admits that when he had suggested getting a weapon to Con Man, he didn't think he would go to his girlfriend Forgery for advice. Still, the results had been undeniable. Those two were fearsome with staffs in their hands.

Mineta recovers quickly, sticking a ball on Con Man's staff and then dragging it to the ground, effectively sticking it in place.

That is the reason Shota had put up with Mineta in his own timeline. Mineta may have been cowardly and a sexual harasser, but he had potential. When his mind was calm, he had good plans and split-second decisions. Shota's goal had been to snip those tendencies and bring about the hero Shota knew he could be, but he refused to change time and time again.

Con Man steps back and drags the point of his staff with him. Mineta, too busy feeling pleased with his own skills, fails to see what Con Man is doing. He lets the point of the staff go, which springs back towards Mineta, smacking him in the head.

"Ow!" cries Mineta stepping back and _taking time to rub the wound_.

Big mistake.

"You thought I am in General Studies," says Con Man with a smile eerily similar to Shota's own. "You're wrong. I took your place in my timeline, Mineta. You were expelled. _All of the girls celebrated that you were gone._ "

"What?!" cries out Mineta, recoiling as if he'd been dealt a physical blow. Shota is not at all sure if Mineta's more upset about being expelled, or not being able to be near the girls. A second later his eyes go blank.

"Say you give up, then pinch yourself lightly," orders Con Man.

"I give up," says Mineta, without any kind of inflection to his words.

Con Man immediately reaches out to his staff and leans on it, panting hard. A bead of sweat falls from his temple to his mouth, and he immediately sputters and tries to spit it out. It doesn't quite work.

Mineta's mind blinks into awareness, realizing what happened and shrieking: "Are you serious?!"

"Deadly serious," grinds out Con Man. Shota recognizes that Con Man's trying to go for cheeky, but it just sounds as out of breath. Yet, adding the sharp grin he's wearing, the dirt all over him and the gleeful glint in his eyes, he ends up looking slightly feral.

Mineta takes a step back and turns around, running back to where all the people who have finished their matches are clumped together.

Shota sighs audibly. Con Man jumps and whirls around.

"You're awake?" he asks disbelievingly.

"You need to be more observant, I'm adding that to your next lesson." Shota deadpanned. "Mineta's screech woke me up," he adds, lying effortlessly.

Con Man blinks and nods, seating himself on the ground.

"So?" says Shota.

"So?" parrots Con Man, a confused expression on his face.

"Conclusions on the fight," drawls Shota, closing his eyes once again.

"Mineta had more stamina and speed than I did, and an extra year of experience. He was creative while using his Quirk and zeroed in on one of my weak spots right at the start. But, he is easily distracted and knocked off-guard. These weaknesses allowed me to beat–"

"No. 'I took advantage of those weaknesses'. Try again," interrupts Shota.

"I took advantage of those weaknesses and won because of it," corrects Con Man.

"Good. Now did you learn anything from this fight?"

"Yeah," says Con Man. He doesn't elaborate on what, but he doesn't need to. Shota can see a new glint of confidence in Con Man's eyes, and that's exactly what the goal of this match-up was.

"Two things," calls out Shota suddenly. "One, you have a rock in your hair. Two, your boyfriend's fight is about to begin."

Con Man curses having missed his girlfriend's fight and scrambles to get up, while searching for the rock in the purple bush he calls hair.

Shota smiles softly at his retreating back, and goes back to pretending he's asleep.

'On second thought', he thinks as he sees the two Bakugos step up to fight. 'Maybe getting closer would be best.'

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

OMAKE:

Mineta walked away hurriedly from the fight, pausing once he was far enough to catch his breath.

'That guy was creepy,' he thought. 'Majorly creepy.'

He was knocked out of his thoughts by the sound of metal clang against metal, and he saw…

He saw heaven.

TWO Yaoyorozus fighting each other, their uniforms ripped in multiple places. He couldn't help but drool, entranced by the way their breasts jiggled up and down in the battle.

Creepy guy's words flashed through his head.

No! He couldn't get himself expelled! The teachers don't like him "looking" at the girls, so if he wants to become a hero, he should shape up and stop! He needs to be cool, like Midoriya!

Forgery– that was her villain name right?– suddenly created another staff from her wrist, which was sent out so quickly that it caught Yaoyorozu off-guard. It ripped her belt off, giving Mineta a pretty nice view of her hips.

Maybe he should just tone it down a bit, just enough to not get kicked out.

Yaoyorozu retaliated, swinging her staff and narrowly missing Forgery's head. Instead, she catches Forgery's hairdo hard enough to get it completely loose. The strands of hair brush just above the curve of Forgery's ass.

Did the UNIVERSE ITSELF not care about his declaration! This is just unfair!

Ok, ok. He can get over this.

Mineta turned left, seeing Uraraka grab her counterpart and slam her to the ground, where they start to wrestle.

"REALLY!" he screamed to no one in particular.

He then stomps to the nearby water cooler.

If he keeps taking glances back and drooling, well, no one has to know.


	5. Setting the Board

People dove into corridors for cover. Some hid in the classrooms, or behind their own works. One even used their Quirk to get out of her way.

'They should really be more careful!' thought Hacker, as people got out of her way. 'We aren't supposed to use Quirks outside of PE!'. She continued to giggle, happy at how thoughtful of her classmates' counterparts to get out of her way! She fiddled with the memory stick she had gotten from Forgery, and spun it in the air. She was careful though! The stick held everything she had saved on her phone, from her favorite songs to the latest project she had been working on.

'Ha! Take that Con Man! Keeping her projects with her at all times did really have an use, no matter how much memory they took up.' she thought, knocking on the door to paradise.

It opened with an explosion.

Hacker simply tapped the side of her head, which deployed a gas mask. Nobody could tell her she had learned nothing for the past Civil War! Gas masks do rock!

"OHMYGOSH YOU'RE HEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" says Hatsume. It's kind of weird to call someone else by your name, but in spirit of practicality she would do it without hesitation!

"I KNOOOOOOW!" responds Hacker. Both take each other's hand and start jumping up and down in place, launching right into a discussion of the meat of things. A mecha! If they could get permission from the Power Loaders, it would make their week!

They both turn in unison towards them. "No," is their immediate response.

Hacker lets out wail of disappointment, which lasts only a second when she remembers the baby she was making for Hagakure. Hacker tells Mei, and she practically snatches the memory stick right out of Hacker's hands. Mei sticks it immediately, copying most files and perusing each folder with glee.

"Did you bring the things you made for the last Civil War?!" Mei asks excitedly, looking over a few of the costumes and the gas masks' designs critically.

"Of course I did! It was the best testing ground for all my babies!" exclaims Hacker, and before Mei can ask anymore about it, she finds the folder for Hagakure's new hero costume, and begins talking DNA integration.

Because she knows herself, Mei forgets fast about the Civil War, and launches right into pointing out flaws and improvements for the costume. She doesn't notice the folder titled "Homework, CW", containing the designs for the Red Goo guns, the Holowall, and the most intimidating costumes. More important was what little she could reconstruct of blueprints of the vehicles and bigger artillery.

She had felt guilty for maybe a minute for hiding so many babies from her other self, but she had then remembered she could share the designs after the UA War was done.

'In the meantime,' she thought, her grin widening and hands flying over the designs. 'I have a war to _win_.'

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Deku lightly jumped in place to keep warm, and maybe a little because he was nervous. His mind whirled with a thousand thoughts, replaying the fights he had seen time and time again. Like how Sparkle used shorter bursts than Aoyama, or how Ojiro had that one somersault down better than Temperance, or how Feedback had tried to overload Kaminari, and Kaminari had the same idea and they knocked each other out a minute into the battle, or how–

"Huh. It does look kind of creepy when I do that."

Deku squeaks and turns around to see Kingpin blink and look as if he hadn't wanted to say that outloud.

"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to call you creepy, though I did kinda call myself creepy? Wait, this doesn't make sense, what am I saying?"

"Don't– don't worry about it," answers Izuku and laughs nervously. There's a bit of an awkward pause between them, until Kingpin says: "Looks like our fight is next!".

"Yeah, it is! Let's do our best!"

"Why don't we trade notes on it after the fight?"

"Sure!" answers Deku, and moves to take his place at the ring.

"Can't we fight a bit more separated from the Bakugos?" asks Kingpin, throwing glances their way. Powerhouse and Bakugou are snarling at each other, teeth bared, insults and fists ready to fly. Deku had already gone to a circle a few ways away from those two, but if the way they're staring at each other was any indication, there was going to be a lot of debris flying everywhere very soon.

Izuku just nods and both of them walk towards another arena. Deku takes a deep breath, and starts watching his opponent. Most of their similarities are there, from the position of his fists, the angle in which his body's facing, the intense focus in his gaze. If he knows himself, he'll probably start by testing the waters, sending a few attacks just to gauge their differences and gather more information. But, since he''s him, he probably thought that too. And he also arrived to that same conclusion before.

'What do you do when your opponent thinks exactly the same as you?' considers Izuku, tensing as his All Might raises the whistle to his lips.

'You don't _think_.'

The whistle goes off.

Deku only has time to duck out of the way of Kingpin's kick, throwing himself on the ground a few ways over. He ignores the taste of dust in his mouth to avoid a stomp coming his way.

'When the hell did he get so fast?!' thinks Deku and jumps back to put as much distance to Kingpin as he can.

Of course, Kingpin doesn't let him go very far, but the moment he gained is enough to watch–

"–Since when do we produce lightning? And for that matter, why is it green?" asks Deku. He knows stopping a fight to talk is a very bad idea, but the question just popped out of his mouth!

Kingpin pauses. He stares at him, and Deku stares back at the green sparks popping up everywhere on him. One for All is not truly a strengthening Quirk, but a power-stockpile Quirk. Maybe it's surplus power being expelled? Is it even truly an electrical current? Deku's never noticed it until now and Kingpin seems to be in the same situation.

"DIE YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"

 ***BOOM***

Oh, yeah. They're supposed to be fighting!

Deku bursts forward to take a swipe at Kingpin, who dodges with an awesome backflip! Izuku can't do that, he's definitely going to ask him to teach him that later!

Kingpin rebounds and tries to seep Deku's legs from under him, but Izuku takes advantage of the situation and kicks him squarely in the chest. Kingpin goes flying and rolls to a stop very close to the boundary. He stands up, clutching his chest. His hand is slightly bleeding through a rip in his glove. His eyes are really wide though.

"How are you that strong?!" Kingpin says, and winces.

"Did I over do it? I still can't control 20% very well–"

"I'm still at 5%! How did you manage that?!"

"You're a lot faster than me though!" Kingpin thinks about his statement for a moment before shrugging.

Kingpin then demonstrates said speed by darting forward, swinging his fist towards Deku's face. It connects, and it doesn't hurt as much as Izuku expects, though Deku closes his eyes, worried that the blood on Kingpin hand would get in them. Infected eyes sound pretty hoooorrrrrr–

 _There are books sprawled on the table, from history to chemistry. He's chewing on the end of a pencil thoughtfully, reading over a question from Literature Class. The air's cold, but it's still not dark enough outside to leave the hidden corner of forest he and Momo had found._

" _What are you thinking of, Izuku?" she asks, setting her pencil down in between the pages of the book._

" _We'll have to go inside soon," he says, and he can't keep the disappointment out of his voice. "It's nice out here. Peaceful."_

 _A runaway strand of Momo's hair is flowing in the wind, and Izuku tucks it behind her ear gently. He lets his hand caress her cheek. She smiles and leans into his touch, her voice light and chiming like bells. She gently tugs him towards her, hugging him and nuzzling her head in the crook of his neck. Izuku presses a light kiss, just below her ear, and she bursts out laughing._

" _You're ticklish there?" Izuku asks._

" _Quite so," she answers, a light dusting of red on her cheeks. Izuku leans for another kiss, and she giggles, hiding her head in his hair._

" _Izuku?"_

" _Hmm?" he responds, looking at her shy smile. She leans forward and captures his lips with her own._

 _She tastes like the tea and cookies they ate, but it's a thousand times better than how Izuku remembers it. Warmth rises to Izuku's cheeks, and he hums, circling Momo's waist with his arms. She threads a hand into his hair, and Izuku can feel her eyelashes on his skin, her heartbeat through his chest–_

-Izuku stepped back and tripped onto the ground. His heart was beating hummingbird fast, his face red as a tomato, and he had a slight nose bleed. Not from the vision! Not from that, no, from Kingpin's punch. That was definitely going to bruise.

Kingpin, on the other side of the ring, was pale white, his hand pressed to his mouth. He leans over and retches, thankfully nothing coming out of his mouth.

Deku goes up to help Kingpin up, and he thankfully takes his hand. Kingpin shakes his head and takes a slow breath, before letting it out just as slowly.

"What the fuck just happened?" both of them ask at the exact same time.

"Did you see–" Kingpin cuts himself off to gesture vaguely with his hands. His face is still pretty pale, and he looks like he could throw up at any second, so Deku guesses they saw two different things.

"I– uh. I saw Momo. I think it was a study session. She... kissed...me"

"You saw that?" asks Kingpin. "... Lucky bastard."

Okay, so apparently his other self didn't keep his curse words to himself.

"What did you see?"

"I'm no–"

"Hey guys! You ok?" They were interrupted by Kaminari coming over to them. "You both froze before– WOW you guys look horrible!"

"No shit," mumbles Kingpin.

"Uh? What'd you say?"

"Nothing, Kaminari. Maybe we should go to Recover Girl. Kaminari, can you tell All Might where we are?"

"Sure!" he says, doing a thumbs and practically yelling to All Might.

Before they left, Izuku noticed Kacchan staring at him. Odd, it wasn't in red hot hatred and detest like usual, it was more contemplation and curiosity. What was– "Focus on the fight, fucker!" Powerhouse yells and punches Kacchan in the face.

"Then give me a challenge, asshole!" Kacchan says returning a punch to the jaw. And like that, the living bombs returned to murdering each other.

"You still haven't told me what you saw," asks Deku hesitantly.

"...It was dark, so I thought I had gone blind for a second. Then there was cold, and blood and light end everything was _so loud._ Now that I think about it… I think I saw a birth. Our birth."

'That makes a disturbing amount of sense,' Izuku thinks and shudders. But wait–

"That means we're seeing each other's memories, right?"

"Yeah!" Kingpin says, his eyes lighting up with the possibilities of something like that. "...maybe it's a power transfer?... memories as power?... true holders, not a copy, didn't happen with Larceny...we should probably tell this to All Might later."

Izuku would be thinking in the same lines if it wasn't for a very tiny detail: "Did the kiss with Momo really happen?", he asks not really sure what to feel about it, except flustered.

"She's been great to me and Shinso … and Mei." It was only through sheer force of will and adrenaline that Izuku didn't pass out then and there. Kingpin laughed, but he put a hand on Deku's shoulder to help steady him. "That's what I feel every day for being so lucky to have their affection," he says, fondness written all over his face, his eyes and his smile.

'So that's how I look when I'm in love,' Izuku thought. "All of them at the same time?" Deku asked.

"All of them. Although we never tried a fourway." Kingpin must have seen the look of confusion on his face. "Four people kissing at the same time."

Deku splutters, hiding his face in his hands. Kingpin laughs again, his face finally back to his normal color.

Both of them finally arrive to Recovery Girl's office, and Kingpin says they both felt nauseous during the battle. She runs a set of tests and nothing comes up, so she lets them go with the warning of coming right back to her if they felt nauseous again. It could be Izuku's imagination, but she looks relieved for some reason.

"Sorry about … whatever that was." Izuku says as they get up.

"Don't be, we had no idea that would happen. In fact … I think we should experiment with that," Kingpin suggests.

"Um … sure, but tomorrow. After all, we have the voting to do." There was silence for a second.

"Crap!" Suddenly screams Kingpin. "The voting!"

They sprint down the corridor, activating Full Cowl halfway, careful to not leave any holes in the halls from their footsteps. Kingpin takes the advantage fast, jumping around obstacles in the hall like they're not even there. Both of them jump over Kaminari, who squeaks and runs after them.

Deku grins and pushes his advantage, one of his strides being three of Kingpin's, and with that, the race is on.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Shoto thought knowing there was a counterpart of him and meeting said counterpart today would have prepared him for a lot … He realized how wrong he was when Kingpin jumped out through the window to the crowd of people waiting for the voting to begin.

A second later, Deku did the same, saying "Sorry for the wait!" and going up to them.

"Typical!" says Monoma, sneering at the two of them. "How thoughtless and arrogant of Class A to keep all of us waiting!"

His counterpart, Larceny, laughs haughtily but says nothing, instead leaning over to say something to Kend– wait, no, her name's Sleight.

Deku goes up to their group, trying his best to ignore Monoma's taunts, and asks "Did I miss something?"

"You did, kero. Aizawa-sensei already put up the voting terminals."

"Thanks!" says Izuku, and runs up to the tablets set up in a row. On the way he crashes into Yaoyorozu, which sends him sprawling into the floor. She offers him a hand to help him stand up, he takes it with a smile, and then blushes as red as Shoto's own hair. He apologizes and runs towards the tablet.

His double, Singularity, goes up to vote, nodding towards Kingpin. Shoto remembers his fight with his double very well. He was somehow a bit more proficient in simultaneous activation of his Quirk, but he didn't deal with frustration at his mistakes as well as he did. It occurs Shoto to just go up to him and ask him why that was, and since they're the same person and they already know the truth about their father, he could answer with the whole truth.

It's still weird for Shoto to be able to talk about that with anyone that isn't from his family. Being able to go up to Midoriya and talk without having to check if his words incriminated his father too much is something Shoto's not used to yet. Being able to talk with someone who _understands_ … Shoto doesn't know what to feel about that.

Maybe he could ask Midoriya how to speak to someone who lived the same life you did, he seemed to be getting along with his other self well enough.

Komori Kinoko, villain name "Parasite", casted her vote and with that, the elections ended.

"Students! We'll be showing the results in three!–"

Shoto makes his way closer to the screen, watching as it changes from "voting in progress", to displaying a hero column on one side, and a villain one on the other. Uraraka maneuvers to position herself in front of him, and he lets her. She's too short to see in the back.

"–Two!–"

Uraraka huffs contraredly and taps her fingers together, making herself float. Shoto takes her hand to act as a tether, and she smiles like sunshine at him. She has dimples, Shoto idly notes.

"– One!"

The results write themselves on the screen, white symbols over the blue background. Funnily enough only four names appear on the heroes' side.

"...Did both classes seriously vote for their own representatives?!" says Sero, watching with dismay as both Kendo's and Iida's names have 19 votes each.

The other two votes are Monoma and Bakugou, who voted for themselves.

The two chosen "Paragons" blink and head towards each other, ignoring how Monoma is asking for a tie-breaker. They both begin a discussion that Shoto can't parse from where he's standing.

In the meantime, he glances to the screen of the villains.

Tied for fifth place, with two votes each were Powerhouse (Bakugou Katsuki) and Larceny (Monoma Neito). Clearly they also voted for themselves, but as for the extra votes, Shoto has no idea where they would have come from… Maybe Powerhouse's came from their Kirishima, codenamed Tank.

He saw his own double, Singularity, be tied with three other people, each of them with three votes. One of them was Basilisk, a B class student that looked chinese. The other was Smuggler, who Todoroki very vaguely remembered as the guy with the softening Quirk from the recommendations exam. He was saved from trying to remember his name by the script beside his villain name (Honenuki Juzo). The last one was Dart (Asui Tsuyu), who definitely had the calm countenance to be a pretty effective leader.

At third place stood Magdalene (Shiozaki Ibara). Shoto wonders what happened to make the votes so spread out, but quickly moves to the next line.

On second place were Sleight (Itsuka Kendo) and Crusade (Iida Tenya), mirroring the situation with the heroes. However, there was one more person in second place: Forgery (Yaoyorozu Momo). Yaoyorozu being so high up wasn't that much of a surprise, Shoto had gleaned from their final exam that she could be a very good leader, if only she stopped doubting herself.

However, he looked at the top spot and saw... _six_ votes for Kingpin. Was Midoriya really that good of a leader in the last Civil War?

"What the FUCK!" Bakugou and Powerhouse screamed simultaneously. "How did I only get 1/2 votes!?" They looked at each other and snarled before looking away, realising it was a bit creepy.

"And how did De–Kingpin, manage the majority!" Bakugou said Bakugou, with only mild rage in his voice.

"Trust me Katsuki, I'm just as surprised as you are." At Kingpin's statement, Shoto saw Shoji frown out of the corner of his eye. Izuku looked over at him, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Todoroki could understand.

'What happened to calling him 'Kacchan'?' he thought.

"Wait!" screams Monoma. "The villains cheated! They have one more vote than they have people!"

"Good observation skills, young Monoma!" praises their All Might. "However, since young Hatsume was also involved in the last Civil War, and she is now participating with the villain team, she was also given a vote!"

Shoto realizes that was a sound decision, since it rules out the possibility of a tie like the one the heroes have now. Speaking of that, both Iida and Kendo nod and go up to the front.

"Kids, hurry up," says Aizawa from his sleeping bag. "One All Might has another class to teach, and the other has a staff reunion shortly."

"We have decided to be co-Paragons!" announces Iida, raising his hand straight up into the sky.

"Then that settles it," drawls Aizawa. "Due to the tie in votes, Iida and Kendo will be playing the role of Paragons, and the Kingpin will be played by… Kingpin."

Aizawa moved to get out of his sleeping bag, looking like that very act was the worst punishment on Earth. "Cool-down stretches and then get out," he grumbled out and then left.

"I can't believe 1-B has to share their glorious leadership with 1-A." Monoma complained.

"You think you have it bad, we have 1-A as the ONLY leader," Larceny refuted.

"Finally, someone gets the greatness that is–" Monoma and Larceny were knocked out by Kendo and Sleight respectively. Shoto, meanwhile, turned back to see the results. There was something … 'off' about them, he just couldn't figure out what.

He guesses he'll have to wait and see.


	6. Opening Moves

Tsunotori Pony, or "Stampede", as she should be calling herself, is the last one to enter the classroom, quickly shutting the door behind her. She waves at Larceny, who makes gestures at a chair between him and Sleight.

She skips all the way there, greeting everybody in the meantime.

"What are we doing?" Stampede asks, setting her school bag down near her chair. They're supposed to be having lunch, but it was decided that they would eat as quickly as possible and then have a meeting. She didn't get enough time to eat at lunch, since Sleight had spoken a bit too fast when she told all of them about it and hadn't understood what she meant until everybody started standing up from their chairs.

Good thing she always carried carrots with her! It wouldn't do to arrive to her second joint Heroics Class with an empty stomach!

"We're talking about costumes and gear at the moment," says Kamakiri. Slasher! Slasher, that was his villain name. He holds up a sheet of paper detailing a costume, and Stampede recognizes Metaphor's work. It's pretty common for everyone to ask Fukidashi Manga to draw stuff for them, and she has to admit, the drawing's pretty impressive.

It takes Slasher's bug-like features and turns them from pretty cool-looking to a insectophobe's nightmare. It looks a lot like an exoskeleton with blades coming out in multiple places. There's a full-face mask and if she's reading the annotation on the corner right, then it's eyes glow in the dark.

"It's so cool!" Stampede wishes she knew more Japanese to tell Slasher just how cool it is, but she just has to make do with a wide smile.

"Everybody!" calls Sleight, standing beside a computer hooked to a camera. "We've made connection with the A Class,so we can start the reunion!"

"Thank you for coming, everybody!" says Kingpin from the screen, sitting in the middle of the crowd. "We don't have much time, so I'll jump right into it. Is everybody done with designing their costumes?"

Stampede nods vigorously. She had a lot of fun doing that! Though it took her quite a few tries since the costume always ended not looking villainous enough.

"Good! Submit them all to Hacker, and she'll draw some blueprints and give suggestions. After that, the idea is for everyone to get the opportunity of seeing all of the costumes and offer suggestions or ideas on how to improve them. Is everybody ok with that?"

"Can I, uhm. Can people not comment on my costume?" says Nirengeki Shoda. Stampede has to think a bit to remember his villain name, but at last she gets it: Double Tap!

"Oh! Then just message Hacker and she'll turn that feature off for you!"

Double Tap looks immensely relieved, and Stampede sees Komori Kinoko, also known as Parasite, nod gratefully too.

"Moving on to next topic! I'm sure some of you have opened that mail I sent you a few minutes ago. Those names you got in it? That's going to be your introduction group."

Stampede remembers that she was in a group with Double Tap and Sleight. She doesn't really know either of them, but they seem like good people so she's pretty happy with the group she got!

"Your introduction group mostly consists of somebody who was a villain in the Civil War, and one or two ex-heroes. The purpose of this group is for the villain to fill the heroes in as to how the group worked and what to expect of being a villain. The only thing you guys really have to do with your group is hang out from time to time."

"Will these groups extend into the UA War?" asks Magdalene, eyeing her paper with some distaste. Stampede notices that Magdalene's vines seem to grow more thorns when she's mad.

"If you find you work well together, then yes," answers Kingpin, taking notes in a notebook beside him.

"We really don't have much time left, so if anybody has any questions, please say them now."

"This question is rather off-topic, yet it needs to be said!" announces Crusade, moving his arms like a robot. It makes Stampede giggle, but she still does her best to pay attention. His language is really formal and sophisticated, so it takes a bit more effort to tell what he's saying.

"Will the remaining plan discussed yesterday in Literature Class be implemented?"

Stampede perks up immediately.

"We've already done the voting plan, and the Civil War understatement plan is underway, so I'm assuming you're talking about Drug-runner's plan?"

"Yes! Is it truly beneficial to our goal?" Crusade asks, this time talking to Drug-runner.

Drug-runner giggles and announces: "Of course! By giving the heroes something to focus on, they'll be less likely to notice anything important. They'll have a lot think about after all!"

Nervous giggles burst out in both classrooms, some people looking apprehensive, others pretty excited.

Stampede is one of the excited ones. She has already a few people in mind that she wouldn't mind working with at all!

"What if we don't want to participate?" asks Fractal. Drat! Kodai was one of the ones Stampede was looking forward to work with. Oh well.

"We'll ask everybody in the group chat if they want to participate or not," says Ashido. "But! If you need to ask someone if they would be willing to go along with the plan and there's a hero nearby, here's the way to do it: look at their fingers! Crossed means yes, anything else means no. Please do not ask if you can't see their fingers!"

In that moment, the bell rings, signaling for everybody to go to the last class before Heroics.

She can't wait! It's going to be amazing!

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Ibara stood next to Kendo as they walked into the classroom, greeted by Iida and Yaoyorozu.

They both carried bento boxes, though the food Ibara could see in them was definitely that of Lunch Rush-sensei. They walked over to the four tables they had moved together to make a bigger one, and sat down.

"Thank you for coming!" says Kendo with a smile, seating herself opposite to Iida. Ibara took that as her cue and sat herself in front of Yaoyorozu. Ibara took out her own bento box and with a quick "Itadakimasu!" all of them began to eat.

"We have approximately 24 minutes until we have to continue to next class!" announces Iida loudly, looking goofy and formal simultaneously, which is something Ibara didn't think was possible. He also looks like an action figure … should probably ask about that at some point.

"So, plans!" says Kendo taking out a few sheets of paper and pens. "I think our main problem right now would be making both classes work together. Maybe we should encourage both groups to spend more time with each other!"

"That sounds wonderful," says Yaoyorozu, smiling and writing down the idea.

"Ibara?" says Kendo, turning to talk to her.

"Yes?" responds Ibara, carefully wiping her mouth and correcting her posture.

"Did you ask the teachers for permission to have Shinsou and Hatsume on our team?"

"I did," begins Ibara. "I asked both Vlad King-senseis and both Power Loaders, and all of them agreed on both accounts. The only thing missing is the go ahead of the two people in question."

She doesn't say how one Vlad-sensei looked immensely relieved when she'd said that, and the other started rubbing his temples worriedly. She also doesn't mention how both Power Loaders looked resigned to their fates at her question. It doesn't seem polite to do so.

"We have a one man numeric advantage! Is that fair to the other UA?" asks Iida, accidentally knocking his glasses askew and pausing them to fix them.

"The teachers said it was to even the odds, since the other UA has more experience on this kind of thing."

The four of them nod, and go back to eating and idly chatting about plans for the UA war. Ibara goes out the door with good opinions of the Class A leader and second-in-command, and at least six different strategies on how to organize themselves in the war. She believes that in the next days they could create a few solid plans, so they would be able to execute them faster in the preparation days.

She is liking both their odds and the idea of the UA War better by the minute; that is her last thought as she enters the last class of the day before Heroics.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Hitoshi stands at the side, looking over the 1-A class as they talk among themselves in their costumes. It takes all of his effort to not feel inadequate in his normal PE uniform, but he manages.

Instead, he looks over all his future rivals. None of them seem to notice him, which is fine by him. It allows him to try and pick out possible weaknesses and memorize their appearance as much as he can.

He notices someone does know he's there. It's the guy he lost to in the Sports Festival, who sends him short glances every now and then, hesitating, and then turning back to talk to the rest of his group. Hitoshis wishes he would either make up his mind and say whatever he wants to say, or give up and leave him alone.

Footsteps come from the entrance passage of ground Theta, and the other class 1-A steps in. He immediately zeroes in on the shock of purple hair exactly like his own. He's… talking to the guy that he lost to. And for a second, Hitoshi could have sworn they were holding hands. He decides to ignore that and focus more on the hero costume he's wearing.

It's a set of black armor with some purple accents, thin enough to hide below normal clothes and subtle enough to not raise suspicion at first glance. He's using a mouthpiece that has small interrogation sign on its right side, just below his ear.

He doesn't see a replica of Aizawa-sensei's capture weapon anywhere, so maybe he still isn't allowed to use it? Hitoshi spares a second to fervently wish to have his own capture weapon with him. Only a few more weeks and he would have been deemed skilled enough to use it in combat.

Hitoshi then remembers that his counterpart was supposed to have been transferred to the Hero course at the start of the second year. If he had spent so much time training like a hero, it should be impossible for him not to have enough skill for the capture weapon. So, either he's wasting his time in the Hero course (stupidest thing he's ever heard), or he simply didn't choose that weapon at all.

His counterpart starts to walk towards him, and Hitoshi snaps out of his reverie. They both stare at each other as they get closer.

Hitoshi is slammed with a sudden wave of jealousy. It's illogical, he knows, to be jealous of himself. But seeing himself as who he wants to be, and knowing that just because of some senseless twist of fate he's not in his place it's enough to do away with some of his rationale.

Instead, Hitoshi swallows down the sentiment and grumbles: "What's your alias?"

"Con Man," he responds, taking a seat on a metal outcropping and gesturing for him to sit too.

There's a second of silence, where both of them try to think of what to say.

"Why?" slips out of Hitoshi's mouth.

"Why me, and not you?" answers Con Man. Right, he's also Hitoshi, of course he would know what his jealousy looks like.

"I just had one more chance to show what I'm made of than you, and in a situation much more suited for us than the Sports Festival," he responds, fiddling with his mouth guard. "And there was a free spot so they gave it to me."

"Free spot? What are you talking about?"

"See the guy with the purple balls in his hair?" Hitoshi scans the colorful crowd, and finds...

"The one who's stuck staring at the frog girl's ass?" he says with disgust.

"Yes. He got expelled, and I was next in line, so I got his spot."

Hitoshi watches as the frog girl notices his starting and smacks him with his tongue hard enough to send him flying. The purple ball guy stops rolling, and stands up. He wipes his cheek with his hand, getting some of her saliva and goes to wipe it on the bandanna on his neck– Nevermind, he's licking the saliva.

"How did he get expelled?" Hitoshi asks though he already kind of knows the answer.

"He kept getting distracted during class by the girls, so his class grades went down a lot. Then he failed the practical part of the Final Exam. His class grades weren't enough to compensate and get him into the remedial training, so he got kicked out."

There's something Con Man's not telling him, Hitoshi notices. He's smirking in the way he does when he knows something nobody else knows. He's glancing at the girl with the uniform that's staying on by wishes and prayers, and the girl with to earphone jacks dangling from her ears with a look of gratefullness on his face.

Before Hitoshi can ask, two All Mights approach and everybody quiets down.

"We have two announcements to make!" starts the All Might without the red band. "Starting from now, teachers from the other timeline will be called by their hero aliases! Those who belong to this timeline will be called by their names! Please keep this in mind!"

All Might walks forward and states: "We now have another guest! Please, Shinsou Hitoshi, step forward!"

Oh crap. He thought he was ready for the 40+ stares on him. He was wrong. Don't look nervous, don't look nervous. Just walk towards the front.

Somebody snickers in the crowd. Hitoshi doesn't know who it was, doesn't even know if it was at him, but he welcomes the wave of spite that comes to him. It lets him look at all those people and not give a shit about them.

"Please, introduce yourself, Shinsou-shonen!" says Toshinori-sensei. Hitoshi has the sneaking suspicion that both of them are taking turns speaking.

"You already know my name. I come from General Studies, and I have the goal of being transferred into the Hero Course. I have no intention of making friends–"

Con Man snorts in the crowd. "Good luck with that," he says, before half-heartedly swatting electric guy's hand away from his hair, which is now sticking up even more because of static electricity.

Hitoshi forgets his train of thought, panics for a second, then simply continues with the usual polite stuff. All of them clap and he walks back to his other self.

"What was that about?" Hitoshi asks outright, glaring at him.

"That was me sparing you of weeks of trying and failing not to get attached to people. It's a lost cause."

Hitoshi doesn't think so. If anything, those words make him more determined. "Then I'll prove you wrong," he says.

Con Man looks surprised, then he seems to think about it for a second, and says "I'd like you to try," with a condescending smirk.

Hitoshi turns and stomps back to the people of his timeline, his face set in a stony mask.

"Shinsou-san!" calls the guy that moves like a robot. "I, in the name of the hero team, would like to extend to you the offer of joining our team in the upcoming UA War!"

"Sure," Hitoshi says and keeps walking, ignoring everything the other guy says.

He has a goal, and no one is going to keep him from it.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Prism is the first one to notice Eraserhead coming into the field. She greets him exuberantly, jumping up and down in place to make herself noticeable. "Hello sensei! What are we doing today? Are we fighting against each other again?"

"No," he says and reaches into his sleeping bag. He then throws something big and green towards Prism.

She barely catches it, since it's heavier than she imagined, and looks to see that she's holding… a watermelon. With the name "Stanley" scribbled on it on both Japanese and English. What.

Eraserhead reaches inside the folds of his sleeping bag again and produces another watermelon, which he throws towards Sero.

"Today we're playing capture the flag, UA vs UA. For those who don't remember the rules, there are two territories, one for each team. Your objective is to get the rival's "flag" out of their territory without being tagged."

"Why is it a watermelon though," asks Sero, making a harness out of his tape for the "flag".

"A watermelon is approximately of the same hardness as a human head. Don't break it," says Eraserhead. Prism decides that holding the watermelon a bit more securely would be a great idea right about now.

"Yooo, can we eat it after the game's over?" asks Feedback, and Prism can't help but laugh. She has to admit that the idea sounds pretty nice!

Eraserhead looks at them in a perfect deadpan, but says nothing, so Prism takes that as a yes. Eraserhead then takes out a tablet and fiddles for a bit with it.

A glowing yellow stripe suddenly appears on the floor, stretching out to the sides of the field until Prism couldn't see it anymore.

"The game starts now."

…

Oh crap!

Prism quickly ducks under Ojiro's tail, barely sidesteps one of his punches, and runs away as fast as she can.

Temperance begins a duel against his double to get buy her some time. It's barely enough to get her into their own territory and pass the melon to Drug-runner, who uses her acid to get away faster than Prism ever could.

Prism, instead, decides to shadow the watermelon and wait for someone to try and get it so she can take them by surprise.

"Everybody follow Stanley!" says Shibari, who constructs a tape harness a lot like the one his counterpart did, but instead takes a bunch of leaves of a decorative bush nearby and makes a ball out of it, all while dodging metal pipes and electrical terminals at full speed. 'Shibari is so cool!' Prism decides and doubles her speed.

By the time she gets to the watermelon, practically everybody is there, some of them already looking battle-ruffled.

"The heroes retreated too, but don't get too confident," says Temperance, sporting a nasty bruise near the tip of his tail, almost as if someone stepped on it. Prism really wants to kiss it better!

"There's not enough time to plan," says Forgery, looking worried. Kingpin looks pretty much the same.

"So we just use a plan that's already made and wing it!" announces Dead Drop cheerfully, holding the watermelon with her pinkies raised so she won't make it float by accident. It looks really cute! "I vote for divide-and-conquer!"

"Please keep in mind you don't need to fight your counterparts, just whoever you think you could win against, ok? Tell the others of the plan," says Forgery.

"And keep the watermelon moving, Eraserhead never said anything against doing that, so we should take advantage of it," remarks Kingpin.

Everybody nods, and then all of them are off.

A handful of seconds later, Prism is almost knocked over by a running Sato. She double-checks that he's the Sato of the opposite team, and makes her way to higher terrain, where she can spot a stack of loose metal pipes. She watches Sato make his way, pausing to look around. Prism measures the distance carefully, waits a second to be sure, then makes the metal pipes roll off the roof she's in and fall directly over Sato.

He has barely enough time to try and block the pipes with his arms, unable to hide the hiss of pain he lets out. He then look towards where Prism is, and downs a packet of sugar in one go.

He starts running deeper into villain territory, and Prism knows she has no hope of ever being as fast as him on sugar, so instead she takes one of the remaining pipes and throws it as his feet. It doesn't hit, but it does produce a really loud clang. That should do it.

Sato doubles his speed, which makes him unable to notice the newly-sprayed acid on the floor. He trips and falls, and Drug-runner lets out a happy: "Yatta!"

Prism runs as fast as she can, and taps Sato on the head, effectively tagging him.

"You guys got me good," he says, standing up to rub at his arms. The acid is not of the potent kind, so aside from some bruises, he's perfectly fine! Prism's happy about that!

Prism then remembers something which makes her giggle and whirl around to face Drug-runner.

"We did it, babe!" enthuses Prism, striking a cute victory pose.

"We sure did, cutie!" She does a cute pose of her own. Prism spots crossed fingers on her left hand. Drug-runner's plan is go!

They both burst out laughing, and lean into each other. Prism decides to circle her arms around Drug-runner's shoulders, and Drug-runner does the same with her waist, pulling each other closer. Prism glances away shily, and leans in for a quick kiss. Prism finds Drug-runner tastes like cherry lip-gloss and leaves her lips tingling like when she eats a lot of pineapple.

The both pull back, and Prism can feel herself blushing incredibly red, not that anybody would be able to see it. Drug-runner's in the same position, but Prism can only tell because she's so very close.

Prism pulls back with a slightly nervous laugh and steals a glance towards Sato, who's staring at both of them in bafflement. He blinks and looks away when she notices her looking.

Drug-runner gently tugs Prism a few steps away from him. She leans in and whispers in her ear: "Think we sold the performance?"

"Definitely!" says Prism, if the way her heart's beating is any indication. "I wouldn't mind doing this with you again!"

Drug-runner laughs and kisses Prism's cheek, then says "I'll go set more traps, why don't you go set up an ambush?"

Prism nods, and both of them run in opposite directions after one last hug. Prism can't help but smile dumbly for a good chunk of the way.

She doesn't know how she'll survive putting into action Drug-runner's fake dating plan, since it's the first time she tries it, and she's already gotten a bit too attached.

Drug-runner's affectionate smile flashes through Prism's head, and she giggles.

Oh, well, she'll figure something out!

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

As soon as Katsuki gets that damn watermelon out of enemy territory, he's blowing it up sky-high.

That is the mantra that keeps him going through this bullshit exercise, blasting at top speed from metal building to metal building.

He doesn't like running away from anyone, but he'll be damned if he loses this thing, so he maneuvers away from Shibari's tape and Tank's thrown metal pipes, tearing his way towards Nightmare and Dark Shadow, who are holding the stupid thing.

A metal pipe passes stupidly close to his head, so he suddenly drops out of the sky and makes the point to kick Tank off the building he's on. He was hardened, so that wouldn't get him kicked out of the fight.

He gets a strand of tape stuck to his elbow for his troubles, which he burns with extreme prejudice and goes back to chasing after bird-brain, who's absolutely no– fucking– where to be found.

Fuck everything.

Instead he sees the shitty knock-off Deku, that Kingpin fuck, standing on a balcony. He starts sparking green and jumps towards Katsuki. Like hell he'd let himself be tagged by this loser, so he uses his explosions to jump sideways.

"Out of my fucking way!" screams Katsuki, trying to kick him in the head, but this fucker is faster than Deku, so he misses. Kingpin then does like, five different feints consecutively, so when the real punch comes he has to jump into the wall. It hurts like hell.

That's it. The nerd's going down.

Katsuki unleashes a flash-bang Kingpin's not able to avoid, and then surges forward in a cloud of smoke, aiming a right hook towards his face.

Kingpin jumps back blindly, getting out of the path of the hit, but slamming painfully into a nearby metal wall. Katsuki takes the opening and aims another hit towards him. Kingpin does a twisting somersault, which gets lets him avoid the main hit, but it isn't enough to get him out of the line of fire. Katsuki aims his other hand towards him.

"Die!" screams Katsuki.

Kingpin rolls away from the explosion, only a few minor burns on him. He stands up, idly wiping some soot off his cheek.

"Is 'die' really all you can say, Katsuki?"

"Shut the fuck up, you worthless piece of shit!"

Kingpin suddenly goes very still. He looks at Katsuki in the eye, his irises glowing acid green from his Quirk.

"Worthless?" he says, in an eerily calm voice, straightening up slowly.

"What, are you fucking deaf too?"

Kingpin bursts forward, aiming a kick towards Katsuki's face, which changes at the last second to an elbow to his ribs. Katsuki dodges aside, aiming one of his hands towards him, but Kingpin's faster, reaching out to tag Katsuki, which forces him to jump aside once again.

This time when Kingpin comes in close for a hit, he unleashes a full-force explosion towards him. Kingpin only has time to cover his face.

Katsuki hears something above him and turns to look. At least a dozen of metal pipes falling from a nearby roof are coming directly towards him. Katsuki realizes that Kingpin maneuvered him into that position just so that his explosion would send the pipes raining down.

Katsuki uses the burst of anger he feels at the realization to fuel an explosion big enough to blast the metal away. The sneaky fuck catches one of the metal pipes and uses it like a bat, coming straight towards Katsuki.

Then Kingpin freezes, and drops the pipe, completing the swing as a punch. It would have been a effective feint it the idiot hadn't frozen before trying to do it. It allows Katsuki to make one last explosion, which sends Kingpin careening into a low-hanging pipe headfirst. There's a metallic thud, and he collapses, clutching his head.

"Pathetic," says Katsuki, smirking at the crumpled form of Kingpin.

A shout snaps him out of his gloating, and he looks to his left to see Deku, running with the opposite team's watermelon. He's being chased by Overdose, and by the looks of his muscles he's definitely on a sugar-high. From the other side of the field, way too fucking close to them, is Forgery, barreling down with _their_ watermelon in her hands. Oh fuck no. He is not gonna lose to someone more intelligent than smart, and someone whose name he can't even remember.

Katsuki aims one last explosion towards Kingpin to keep him from getting up, since he's still too concussed to dodge it. He uses the impulse of that explosion to knock into Overdose and send careening off his path. Without having to worry about getting slammed by Overdose, Deku can finally concentrate on running, and his speed is obviously better than ponytail chick's.

"Victory for the heroes!" calls All Might, or Toshinori, Katsuki has no idea and honestly doesn't care. Instead, he goes up one of the watermelons, and crushes it under foot until red sprays everywhere.

"NOOOO!" yells Feedback, the villain electro dolt. "We could have eaten it! Why are you so heartless."

"Don't worry!" says Tank, the other shitty hair. "We still have the other one!" Katsuki notices Feedback and Tank both have crossed fingers. What are they–

"Oh right, thanks bro!" says Feedback and pecks Tank's cheek. Katsuki freezes … he doesn't know what he's feeling, but it's making him feel violent and sad at the same time. He responds the only way he knows how.

"Fuck off you two idiots!" And proceeds to walk away.

"Who knows, we might!" Tank calls out.

'Ok, what the fuck is even going on anymore?!' thinks Katsuki and stomps back to the ground's entrance, where things make more sense and he doesn't feel like punching shit until his hand breaks

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"Ok, how many fingers do I have up?"

"Two."

"What was the last class we had?"

"We had math with Cementoss. Forgery, I'm fine, really," Kingpin says from where he's sitting on the ground.

Forgery can see that his eyes sometimes unfocus and his responses are coming half a second too slow for it to be normal, so excuse her for not believing him.

"Kingpin, Izuku, you can't keep doing this. We want to help you, but we won't know how if you don't tell us what's wrong," she says, helping him stand up slowly. Sparkle had already gone to call Recovery Girl, thankfully.

"I'm sorry," he says, letting out a sigh and fully leaning on her. "I just– I've had worse and I'm fine, so things like this don't seem worth bothering others for."

Forgery doesn't know what made Izuku like this, but each time it happens it breaks her heart. She shakes her head and simply concentrates in getting Kingpin into a spot easier for Recovery Girl to reach. While they're walking, a thought pops into her head.

"Why did you throw the match against Bakugou?" asks Forgery, stroking her thumb over Kingpin's hand. "I know that if you'd continued the swing with that pipe it would have broken his arm. That would have given you enough time to tag him. You've done similar things before, so why not now?"

"Because they don't know that," answers Kingpin curtly. "Their Izuku hasn't realized what he's capable of and I don't want him to know that."

There's something in it that clues Forgery on the hidden part of the problem. "Izuku… do you regret ever becoming Kingpin?

He pauses in thoughtful silence, his lips moving silently.

"...I don't think so. I mean, it's not very comfortable knowing of how… villainous I'm capable of being. Of knowing just how far I can go. But... it's better than finding that out in the middle of a real battle by doing something I would regret."

Forgery smiles, and squeezes Kingpin's hand affectionately. She spies Con Man talking to his double. Well, more like arguing about something. They stop when they see her arrive. Shinsou then asks Con Man something in a lower tone, but he must have underestimated the acoustics of the place because Forgery can hear every word.

"Before you leave, I'd like to ask you a question. Did the green-haired guy ever tell you how he undid our brainwashing? All I got out of him was 'I wanted to win really hard'," Shinsou asks.

"Oh, he said he had a specific thought process in his brain that boosted his adrenaline into high enough levels to disregard the signals and soundwaves of outside voices." Shinsou stares at Con Man. "I asked Hatsume, she just said it's a smart way of saying 'I wanted to win really hard'."

Forgery glances towards Kingpin, who looks at her with a sheepish, but unapologetic expression. She shakes her head and says: "Con Man, could you lend me a hand?" Forgery knows her strength, though adequate, is not enough to support most of Kingpin's weight for long periods of time.

He nods and walks over, taking Kingpin's other arm and leaning over to peck her lips. Hitoshi stares at them, before shaking his head and walking away, muttering something about that sounds a lot like 'inevitable'.

The three of them laugh the whole way to the infirmary.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Izuku was nervous a he walked into the room, contrasting the bright smile that Kingpin had. It was the first time he got to talk with _both_ All Mights at the same time!. It was a fangasm just to _picture it_.

Kingpin instead goes up to All Might and says: "Rememberthebattlefromyesterday? Wellsomethingreallyweirdhappenedand–"

"Slow it down, my boy," chuckles All Might, ruffling his hair with a fond smile.

"What he meant to say," says Deku, going up to both of them, vibrating with excitement. "Is that last time we fought, something strange happened. We, for some reason, saw each other's memories!"

"That's very interesting," says Toshinori, putting a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "There has never been two wielders of One for All. Copies don't truly count, since they'd only be copying the Quirk and part of the stored power, not all of it."

"Have you been able to replicate this?" asks All Might.

"We thought it would be kinda dangerous, so we waited until we could tell both of you," says Deku, taking out a notebook out of his bag and going over the notes he took after the fact.

"Can we try?" asks Kingpin, grabbing his own notebook and placing it beside Deku's, open on the same page.

"I'll notify Recovery Girl," says Toshinori, taking out his phone and beginning the call.

"What do you think triggered it?" asks Deku.

"I think it was either the blood or the skin-to-skin contact with One for All active," answers Kingpin. "I'm not entirely sure."

"One way to find out," Deku says, grabbing a pocket knife out of his bag and setting it on a table nearby. "First skin-to-skin, and then blood?"

"Sure!" answers Kingpin, taking off his school jacket and re-tying his red band around his neck.

"All is ready to go, my boys!" says Toshinori, while All Might moves two chairs for both of them to sit in.

"On the count of three?" says Kingpin, starting to spark green, his eyes glowing with excitement and energy.

"One," says Deku, activating his Quirk too.

"Two," Says Kingpin as he raises his palm to his counterpart.

"Three!" They both call out as they touch eeeaa–

 _They're walking along an empty street, everything too quiet to be natural._

" _I-If we keep going straight, All Might will probably be waiting for us. We should take a detour–."_

" _Why should we run away? I'd definitely be better if we beat him up!"_

" _W-We should avoid combat if we can no matter what!"_

" _We'll toy with him until it's almost over, and then when he's tired out, I'll beat him up!"_

' _It's really hard for me to deal with Kacchan' thinks Izuku, letting him walk on for a moment. 'But I can't think about that right now.'_

 _He begins to run, and shouts: "Who do you think All Might is? Even with the handicap, you can't win against him!"_

 _Kacchan rears his hand back and hits Izuku in the face, hard enough to send him flying. He stops, clutching his nose, fearing that it could be broken._

" _Don't say another word … Just because things are going better for you doesn't mean you should talk. It's pissing me off._

" _Wait, Kachan! I'm saying this so we can pass the test! Listen, Kachan!"_

" _I told you, your power isn't needed to pass–"_

" _Stop yelling! This is why we can never have a real conversation!"_

 _A blast of air tears everything around them, and Izuku can't tell which direction is up or down amidst all the debris and–_

Kingpin snaps out of the memory, blinking away the feeling of being in two places at once. The memory itself… he remembers his Final Exam very differently than what he just saw.

He glances towards Deku, whose eyes are glossy and unfocused, limp in his seat. It does look kind of eerie, like he's looking at a very life-like doll and not another person. Kingpin wonders why his flashback is longer than his.

"So, how was it?" asks Toshinori, as Kingpin checks that everything's ok with him. All Might hands him his notebook and pen, and Kingpin answers with a cheerful "Thanks!" and begins writing in it.

Deku stirs and blinks, shaking his head.

"Welcome back!" Kingpin said with a friendly smile. "You were out a bit longer than me, so I got started writing already. So it looks like–"

"You liar."

Kingpin froze at those words. He looks up confused, but still grinning.

"You … you planned _everything_. The misdirection, the match, the votes–" As Deku went on, Kingpin dropped his smile.

"Shit, forgot that info was also up for grabs. And it was such an interesting experiment too. Oh well." Kingpin calmly starts to pack his things. Deku's eyes widen.

"I'm going to tell them! I'm going to out you for what you are!" Deku almost yells. All Might and Toshinori, on the other hand, start to sweat in worry and confusion respectively.

At this Kingpin smirks. "Oh yes, tell them. With all that 'information' and 'proof' you've acquired. Do tell them where you got it from!" Kingpin remarks with air quotations.

"... What?" Deku looks confused.

"Oh right, let me give you a demonstration." Kingpin clears his throat, and then starts talking in a bright and cheerful voice. "'Hey guys, Kingpin is lying! I learned about it by getting visions when we touched! Yeah, my Quirk's only strength enhancement, why do you ask?" He drops the cheerful voice and goes back to his casual one.

Deku's eyes widen. "My Quirk told me … but–"

"But it's a se-cret-Quirk." He says, stressing the syllables like he's explaining to a child. "We both know that we're good at hiding information. But when it comes to outright lying?" He laughs coldly, picking up his notebook and pen.

"Don't you realize it? You have no way of telling the others of what they're up against without letting down All Might. Your hands are tied. This time, you can't do _anything._ "

Deku froze at that.

"Thanks for the help, All Mights! I'm afraid we won't be trying this again until after the UA War! Sorry for taking up your time," Kingpin says, bowing low.

Kingpin turns, walking away confidently. Deku sees him pull out his phone and logging into a chat named "hero class villains", before he rounds a corner and disappears from view.

Deku looked down at his hands. ' _I like Deku, it's got a you can do it vibe.'_

He starts to clench them tightly. ' _From now on, Deku is the name of a hero!'_

Deku grits his teeth together. ' _What's your name?'_

The boy unconsciously activates his power. '' _Someone told me that there's a different meaning to the name, that I_ can _do it.'_

"Since when … did he forget WHO WE ARE!" Deku grabs his bag and slams the door behind him, shattering the glass … he reopens the door. "Sorry about the glass!" And closes it again.

The two former Number Ones look on, slightly in confusion, mostly in shock. "So … what now?" says Toshinori, numbly beginning to pick up the pieces of glass.

"We wait, see what those two come up with, and guide them to the best of our abilities," All Might says and goes to get the trash can in the corner of the room. "You have tomorrow after first period free, right?"

Toshinori nods, letting the glass clink on the bottom of the trash can.

"There's a video I think you should see."


	7. A Chance Gained

Hey guys! Turn out, this thing has a schedule. Every Saturday. So enjoy.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-

Assault looks on as the rest of the 1-A villains enters the common room of their building from where he's leaning on a back wall.

He watches carefully, noting Dead Drop's confused expression, Animal's worried one, or Feedback's apprehensive one, among many others. Nobody knows exactly why they're here, since Kingpin just texted "curtain's coming loose", which is the code for "Civil War understatement compromised".

Speaking of Kingpin, he's on the far wall of the common room, generic furniture pushed away to make room for a sprawling planning board. It's not orderly or easy to follow, by any means, but compared to how it was in the Civil War, it's a huge improvement.

Overdose is the last to arrive, munching on some strawberry cake, and the session begins.

Kingpin caps his marker and sets it aside, and turns to face them. His hands are covered in colorful smudges from using them as erasers.

"I'm sorry," he says coming towards the center. "Izuku saw something he shouldn't have and found some of our little plans. He knows the truth." Everyone in the room tensed.

"Ha, I knew you'd fuck it up first." Kingpin glared at Powerhouse's smug grin for a second. "Give me my money." Tank hands 550 yen to–

"Wait, you made BETS!" Kingpin screamed.

"Well yeah, I put 1200 on Feedback fucking it up fist." Said PR, causing the electric teen to splutter in outrage.

"I still can't believe I lost 2300! I thought for sure Hacker would spill her plans first," Sero groaned, getting a glare from the gadget girl.

"Weren't we going to do that anyways? You know, reveal how crazy the Civil War was before the UA War?" says Prism, perched on a desk.

"Correct, Prism!" begins Crusade. "Even if we are the villains, it would have defeated the purpose of the exercise if the heroes wouldn't have had a fighting chance!" Crusade had been very insistent on that fact, Assault remembers. Kingpin had agreed, since a lot of people weren't comfortable with just curbstomping their unsuspecting selves.

"Yes, that was the plan," says Forgery, while Sparkle takes out his phone with a flourish and begins to take pictures of Kingpin's new ideas and sending them to the group chat. "But the idea had been to control said reveal, drop just enough hints here and there for them to piece the picture two or three days before the exercise."

"This is just a complete loss of the element of surprise," Con Man grouches and slams his head on the desk, groaning.

"We should run damage control before the news reach the rest of the hero team," Assault says, passing Con Man his thermos full of coffee. Con Man takes it and begins to take sips, his eye-bags a touch darker than normal.

"Not necessarily," says Kingpin.

"Whaaaa–" says Feedback, his eyes comically wide. "Who are you and what have you done with Kingpin?"

"Don't be so dramatic Feedback!" says Dead Drop excitedly. "I'm sure Dek– whoops, Kingpin has a reason for that!"

Kingpin smiles, two dimples forming on his cheeks. "Thank you, DD! I I used my _piece_ , so I can assure that Deku won't be able to tell any of the heroes outright what he knows!"

It's in these kinds of moments that Assault is extremely glad he had joined the villains in the Civil War. All of the heroes look different shades of baffled, nervous and horrified. The only reason the villains don't share their sentiment is because they know Kingpin would never turn against them. Ever.

"That means he's going to be the one to carry out the Fighting Chance plan, isn't he?" says Singularity, his mismatched eyes staring straight into Kingpin's own. "If he can't state what we've done outright, that means he can only drop hints here and there, the same thing we were going to do."

"A bit more thoroughly than we would have done it, but essentially? Yes," Kingpin responds, tossing the marker to PR, who catches it with her earphone jacks and sets it in the box with the other markers.

"One less thing to worry about," says Assault, and with that, the meeting's over … and he owes Powerhouse 2300 yen. Not a good way to start the day.

He stands up and joins everyone to go to Kayama-sensei's class.

There a few suspicious clanking sounds coming from the distance, but Assault shrugs them off. It wouldn't be the first time a Support project went wrong. He just hopes it wasn't one of Hacker's. Those tend to have… _peculiar_ outcomes.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Chunks of metal were strewn along the ground, warped beyond recognition. Torn circuits sparked intermittently, dangerously close to puddles of water. What had once been the head of a mecha was now stuck on one of the fake water towers nearby, like somebody had decided to stick the piece of machinery on it like a hat. The remains of a house caved in the distance, finally done in by the ice-covered robot arm crushed on top of it.

Aizawa looked over at his students, shivering with fear and cold. Some of them badly hurt, others just needing a heat blanket. Thankfully, none of them were too tired for Recovery Girl's healing, having been taken out of the battle too quickly for it to matter.

The last of the second and third years who came to help were already leaving for their own classes, yet still sent nervous glances towards the two Hatsumes being chewed out by Power Loader.

Aizawa sighs. They should have known that the Hatsumes wouldn't resist the temptation of building a giant robot.

"I know we just had to deal with _this,_ " Aizawa says, more than one student flinching at the mention of what just happened. "So the Principal and Eraserhead have decided to change the Heroics Class activity we had for today. It'll be mostly a mental challenge."

Kaminari started to mumble 'no more thinking' over and over, Drug-runner joined the chant sounding far too chipper for the situation. Feedback doesn't join in since he's helping Pirate Radio and Jirou dig their earphone jacks out of a clump of fast-hardening foam. The amount of curses all three of them are saying should have earned them detention for a week, but the situation merits it, so he'll let it slide.

"We will divide the teams so they have an even amount of analytical-minded people." The Sparkle says something in French, which probably is "what a relief", before dramatically flopping down on Assault's lap, who starts fanning him with one of his hands. He keeps muttering something about whips, and the Hatsumes' twisted mind, and since he was the one that got shoved into the robot's hidden compartment, Aizawa resolves not to ask. His team would have one of the Midoriyas for sure, just to make up for the mental strain that event caused.

"The physical portions are also balanced based on your teams," Aizawa continues. Mineta, Con Man, and Shinsou all sighed in relief.

"Um, sir." Forgery raised her hand. "What's going to happen to Hatsume and Hacker?" she asked worriedly.

"She and her counterpart will have in-school suspension for the next 2 days," says Ectoplasm as he walks by Kouda, who was giving Shiozaki some hot chocolate.

"Wait, where's Dead Drop?" asks Dart. A second later said girl falls through the ceiling. Aizawa noted to pair her with one of the Bakugous for getting that injury. Speaking of the Bakugous seem to be coming down from their adrenaline high, which means they're safe enough to bring inside.

From then on, the incident known as 'Mechapocalypse' was now a forbidden subject among the entirety of U.A.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Fukidashi Manga really, really wished he had gotten another team for this exercise.

He had walked into the room he had been assigned to, only to hear Monoma say: "Finally! Someone who isn't disgusting!" and walk towards him with his insane gloating expression. Where was Kendo when you needed her?

Manga listened with half an ear to Monoma's rant while he looked at the rest of the room. There was not much to see, admittedly. Blank walls, white floors, no windows. It was practically empty except for a wide, circular pedestal in the center, which Manga recognized as a touch-screen computer.

His other teammates were the 1-A pervert (Why. Why did it have to be him? At least there weren't any girls in the team, so he wouldn't be distracted), the villain explosive guy and the villain's leader. The last two were in opposite corners of the room, glaring at each other.

Great.

The console in the center of the room beeped and a set of instructions appeared on its surface.

"Two teams of five will face against each other, each in their own rooms," began to read the villain's leader, or "Kingpin" as it said in the list of names of their team.

"This exercise will consist of two phases, each of them with–"

"Hurry the fuck up!" screams Powerhouse right beside Manga, which kinda left his ears ringing. Kingpin grit his jaw and looked up from the console.

"You shouldn't interrupt, we could learn valuable information," he says with a glare and then proceeds to completely ignore Powerhouse's' screaming rant. He's silent for a second, so Manga thinks he's lost the place where he stopped reading, but then he says:

"Okay, so the gist of the exercise is this. We'll get a question related to Heroics from the other team, and we'll have some time to answer it. If we don't answer it in time, the other team will get access to the remote-controlled weapons hidden in this room and attack us. If we manage to answer the question correctly, we then get to ask a question to the other team, if they don't answer we'll get to attack them. The team whose members are eliminated first loses."

...Okay so he reads really fast. Good to know, Manga supposes.

"So we'll win in no time!" says Mineta, perched like a monkey from the controller, too small to see it if he stands on the ground. "The Midoriyas know so much hero trivia it's scary!"

"How fitting for class 1-A to think just useless facts the most important part of Heroic Theory!" says Monoma with an air of superiority that Manga knows to be pure bullshit.

The console pings, and a question writes itself on the surface.

'Why was it decided that the Police Force wouldn't be able to use their Quirks?'

"What!? This doesn't have anything to do with Heroics!" cries out Mineta, throwing his hands in the air.

The console beeps twice and turns red, the one minute they have for answering the question suddenly drops to 45 seconds.

"So that was wrong," says Manga, fully aware that he's stating the obvious. He doesn't know the answer or what else to say, so sue him.

"That one is easy!" says Monoma. "The government thought it would be easier to regulate the usage of Quirks in fewer people than the thousands of police agents in Japan!"

The console beeps once, half of the screen turning green. Their time doesn't get cut, so Manga supposes that means the answer was correct, but there are things missing in it.

"... I think I know," says Kingpin tapping the screen absently. "Being a Pro Hero is not just being a public servant and saving people. It's also a business. The Pro Heroes of the time pushed for the Police Force being unable to use their Quirks so they could have a sort of…monopoly on Quirk usage, and use that as a way of attracting fans, and by consequence, money."

The consoled beeped again and turned completely green before a text-box appeared to write the next question.

"Well, that was depressing," said Manga, a sweat-drop appearing on the speech-bubble he had for a head. It then changes to a question mark, and Manga says: "Why don't we ask them about the influence pre-Quirk fictional heroes had on Pro Heroes?"

"Great idea from one of our own members." Says Monoma with a haughty attitude. "I'll type it in now." Monoma reaches over, asking 'What influences did fictional heroes have on Quirk users during the year 2030'.

"Why the hell did you pick 2030? Heroes weren't until 2038, moron," snarked Powerhouse.

"Well it actually makes sense. While Pro Heroes weren't around yet, people still felt a duty to use Quirks for the greater good and became vigilanties. Most of the early vigilantes were teenagers and young adults inspired by the stories they grew up with. Because the government saw that, they began to regulate the profession so kids wouldn't be the ones doing the work." Everyone stared in silence at Mineta with simultaneous flat and curious looks. "I get good grades!"

"See, even the miniscule pervert of 1-A sees our greatness." Kingpin, Powerhouse, and Manga all twitched (The last one with an anime popped-vein anger symbol etched onto the side of his head) while Mineta slumped.

"Just send the damn question already!" said Powerhouse, and without waiting for their agreement, he punched the send button.

Kingpin looked like he wanted to snark at Powerhouse for doing something like that, but the last second he turned away and breathed in and out slowly and deliberately. "I think we should use the time the other team has to answer the question to think of the next one."

Manga gave him a thumbs up. There were times like this he liked Pony's suggestion of using his head for emojis. Still, sometimes he activated his Quirk completely by accident and suddenly a crying face emoji sprayed water everywhere. That's one of the reasons 1-B has a mop every room they go to. 1-A never questioned it, but Manga's class never questioned their rubber sandals either.

"Fuck this is boring. Why don't we ask them something about fighting? I doubt anyone other than myself or Tank gets it," Kingpin and Monoma sent him glares at that declaration.

"I say we ask them about the structure of UA," suggests The 1-B copycat.

"Or we could ask about dangers of vigilantism," suggests Kingpin, as Powerhouse starts to growl.

Before a fight can break out, the console beeps three times, and the surface turns into the footage of a room identical to the one they're in. Apparently, the other team still had twenty seconds to answer their question. They could make out Feedback as being part of the other team, but everyone else was just a black silhouette.

"Why can't we see any of the girls?" The pervert asked with tears in his eyes.

"Looks like we see one member everytime," observes Kingpin. He reaches out to the console to tap at it. Six different lists of five weapons appear on it's surface, each with their own colors.

"So, we have to choose our weapons!" says Monoma. Manga leans over and notices that all of the lists have a really good weapon, and a nearly useless one on them.

"The white list has a taser, Feedback's on the other team, I think we shouldn't pick that one," says Manga, Kingpin shakes his head and begins trying to talk.

"We take the right one damn it!" interrupts Powerhouse, going to press the red list without asking. Again.

"If you'd let me finish you'd know red isn't the color we need, it's green!" says Kingpin, swatting away his hand. Powerhouse simply swings his arm towards Kingpin, and both of them _begin fighting in the middle of the exercise._

"I suggest we take the blue, because you 1-As are usually wrong," snarks Monoma.

"Guys, we have five seconds left!" says Mineta.

'Fuck my life,' thinks Manga.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-

Izuku meant it when he said he was going to beat Kingpin. Deku means 'you can do it!' after all! He doesn't go back on his word!

But… he doesn't know _how_ to do it.

He'd been very distracted during the whole exercise, trying to think of when to say what, and how to say it and how much to reveal and…

If he hadn't guessed that one of the Iida's was on the other team and stopped asking things that could be found on a textbook, his team would have lost.

"Deku, did you hear?" asks Uraraka, entering the common room with a spring in her step. Iida follows her, a blooming bruise on his cheek from where Izuku had shot him with a peashooter in the exercise.

"Kingpin and Powerhouse started fighting in the middle of the exercise! I was on the other team, and I thought they were someone else since those two were blacked out, but then the exercise ended and Powerhouse threw Kingpin out of the room. Apparently Kingpin broke his nose!," she said animatedly, yet still with a touch of disbelief.

Izuku blinked. An idea started forming in his head, and he realized that Kingpin had accidentally given him the key to making it work.

"That's weird, I wonder what happened in the Civil War for those two to hate each other so much," said Izuku, with genuine curiosity and apprehension in his voice.

"It does beg the question," said Iida, putting a hand on his chin quizzically. "Wasn't Powerhouse the Paragon in that war?"

"Yeah, and the only way I could see Kacchan being that angry is if he had lost the war pretty badly."

"The heroes losing? But… didn't they say that the villains had been outnumbered?" Iida asked.

"I wouldn't have taken you as such a good villain leader," says Uraraka, slightly mystified at the possibility.

"Neither did I…" says Izuku, unable to hide a note of apprehension in his tone.

Uraraka and Iida exchange concerned glances.

"What's wrong, Deku?" asks Uraraka, seating herself closer to Izuku. 'Okay, this will either make or break the plan,' thinks Izuku. 'Say the truth, omit details, don't look to suspicious.'

"It's just… there's something _weird_ about Kingpin, I can't put my finger on what. I'm not exactly sure how to put it into words..." trails of Izuku, searching for the right words to say.

"I can understand. A different event can cause different branches of personality and behavior. Seeing yourself act in such a manner can be disorienting. Don't worry, I'm sure you could get used to it after a while though. It's only a small change, after all." Iida says with enthusiasm.

"If you're sure," says Izuku, but doesn't bother hiding his doubt at it. His plan hasn't failed exactly, but if he wants it to work, he'll have to continue pointing out the inconsistencies.

An idea pops into his mind, this time completely his own.

"Um, Iida, could I help you guys with the planning for the UA War?" says Izuku hopefully. "I promise I can help a lot!"

"I don't see why not, though I will have to ask Kendo for her agreement!" says Iida, nodding furiously. "However! I think she would include someone else from 1-B in the planning to keep things balanced!"

Izuku thanks him, internally letting out a sigh of relief. He looks over to Uraraka, who's staring at Dead Drop walking by outside the window. "Hey guys, I need to go talk to my double about some stuff. See you guys later?" she asks.

"It's fine, I actually need to discuss something with Aizawa-sensei too," Izuku says, staring curiously at Uraraka's flustered expression. She bows curtly and leaves.

"I will then take my leave! The answer to your offer of help will be given to you after this meeting!" says Iida, and the group says their see you laters.

Izuku walked to the teacher's lounge, juggling ideas and mentally going through the rules. For now, he'd work on evening the field. Both classes needed to work together if they wanted to even have a chance of winning. The heroes needed to be made aware of the threat the villains posed. Izuku also knew Iida; his plans, although good ones, were predictable and that against himself would be a huge

However, he couldn't just focus on weaknesses. What they sorely needed was an edge, something that could keep the villains on their toes. The Mechapocalypse had reminded him of something, and he needed to know if he would be stopped before he could put it in practice. Hence, looking for Aizawa-sensei.

'If this works," he thought, raising a hand to knock on the door. 'I might have found the way to win this.'


End file.
